BREAKING NEWS

BREAKING NEWS

The week that was

HEALTH CARE DELAY The nation’s business owners received a pleasant surprise last week: The Obama administration announced that the implementation of a key component of the new health care law will be delayed for a year. The requirement that medium and large companies provide coverage for their employees or face fines was slated to take effect Jan. 1, 2014. Instead, the requirement will now take effect Jan. 1, 2015. Of course, the administration insists, the delay has nothing to do with the 2014 midterm elections. Rather, the delay is simply the administration listening to the concerns of business owners and providing them with more time to adequately prepare for the changes. Uh huh. Surely the fact that Republicans would have used the issue as a midterm election strategy had nothing to do with the decision. Does anyone believe that the administration is suddenly looking out for the best interest of business owners? Business groups were obviously happy, considering they weren’t pleased with the requirement from the time it was announced. Some businesses had announced plans to reduce their workforce numbers, or cut the number of hours worked by some employees in order to avoid the requirement. Perhaps with the year delay, the Obama administration will forgo the requirement altogether, considering most businesses already offer employees health care benefits. Perhaps the fate of the requirement lies with the outcome of the 2014 midterm election.